Are the Aslan a major race?

[sabredog]

Kinda like if someone argued that Japan wasn't a major naval power in 1922 because most of their major warships had been built in Britain... and that the few that had been built in Japan used either British-built boilers, turbines, & guns or Japanese built ones which were slight modifications of British designs.

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 acknowledged Japan as the 3rd-most-powerful navy (after the US & Britain, but ahead of France and Italy).

Exactly right - the Japanese sent people to study engine designs in Great Britain, guns and armored steel in Germany, and ship design in France. Then they went home, and didn't just copy the designs they studied them and improved them all to make their own ships - better shells and ways to improve the pressures the guns could fire at, more efficient reciprocating engines, and better armor plating techniques that left less room for critical fractures on impact. Then they went out and virtually annihilated one of the most powerful and advanced fleets in the world at the time in 1905 - including one of the most advanced protected cruisers made -the Varyag - that had been built in the US for the Russians!

In fact, the Knyaz Suvorov, flagship of the Russian fleet, was built to French specifications but since it didn't have the Japanese's improvements Togo's ship, the Mikasa blew it to pieces in record time; she was hit so hard and so fast by the improved Japanese guns and shells that her plating actually began to burn in places and one of her turrets was sent flying.

I see the Aslan as having done the same thing without firing a shot to do it - they had something advanced fall into their laps and they studied it, improved it (since they aren't stuck at the same jump number), and produced enough of them to build a fleet. And from what little I know of the Aslan they weren't exactly neobarbarians when the first jump drive was found by them.

I'd argue a better way to determine an race's status is how technologically advanced they are regardless of jump drive discovery. Once you seem to hit the key prerequisites of fusion power (or similar), computer capability to control a jump, and master gravitics for building acceleration buffers and drives then the jump drive is as good as done.

Unless....and here I find another problem with this Major Race concept: what if you are just unlucky enough to have insufficient access to the lanthanides needed to make a jump drive but have everything else? Or are even more advanced - like distingrators, teleportation, AI computers, etc..that are listed as above Imperial standard TL? What are you then, just enlightened Minor Races?

 

[mike wightman]

MWM's jumpspace article contradicts:

I'd argue a better way to determine an race's status is how technologically advanced they are regardless of jump drive discovery. Once you seem to hit the key prerequisites of fusion power (or similar), computer capability to control a jump, and master gravitics for building acceleration buffers and drives then the jump drive is as good as done.

It states it also requires an inspired genius to make the breakthrough.

This is why independent invention of the jump drive has only occurred 4 times in the OTU:
ancients/droyne, solomani, hivers, k'kree.

I don't believe the vilani or the zhodani invented it, I think it was more a rediscovery since they knew it was possible. Conspiracy theorists may also speculate that the solomani invention of jump drives was actually the result of either trade with 1st Imperium free traders or retroengineering of an alien craft.

In the OTU there will be lots of races that make it to high TLs without ever discovering jump.

MT even states that the first star faring races never discovered it and had to use alternative methods for interstellar transport. Grandfather was the first to discover jump (as I've stated before IMTU he didn't discover it - he invented it by detonating a device that created the jump interface in an expanding bubble - the Empress wave is the result of a race elsewhere in the galaxy detonating a counter device)

 

[Jame]

I see the Aslan as having done the same thing without firing a shot to do it - they had something advanced fall into their laps and they studied it, improved it (since they aren't stuck at the same jump number), and produced enough of them to build a fleet. And from what little I know of the Aslan they weren't exactly neobarbarians when the first jump drive was found by them.

I'd argue a better way to determine an race's status is how technologically advanced they are regardless of jump drive discovery. Once you seem to hit the key prerequisites of fusion power (or similar), computer capability to control a jump, and master gravitics for building acceleration buffers and drives then the jump drive is as good as done.

I agree with this except for one thing: IMTU, the Aslan DID invent the jump drive on their own. They THEN found a Terran (or whatever) ship in another system which they then copied - and who knows, that may have been where they got modern fusion (you don't need it for jump IMTU) and Any Gravitics What So Ever from... :devil:

 

[Hyphen]

Folks, you do realise this was Marc's subtle little joke? He *always* knew the Aslan were "minor". It was meant to be a social commentary on class systems, using an invented society's invented classifications, used to "put down" every race other than their own.

BTW, Jame, you can do what you like in YTU - the Fun Police are a myth, really. But are we discussing the OTU, or variants?
(oh, and I keep forgetting to say "Arr!" in evey post - it is the 19th, after all!

 

[Theophilus]

And the greater question is:
"Who Cares!"

Do the Zhodani sit around arguing if the Aslan are a major race?
How about the Vargr?
Do the K'kree care about major or minor status?
Is it all some massive Hiver manipulation?

Does the average Imperial citizen know or care? "Oh honey look at this article in todays paper, 'Aslan not major race', found in section C page 14!"

Okay, maybe the "racist" Solomani might use it as propaganda, but really, would most people care? Are the "Major" races going to declare universal war against this minor upstart?

I would think that for most people, this would be a non-issue. Never thought about, never debated, never considered. Who cares, it's time for me to go too work!!! Earn my credits too spend at Megamart!!!!

 

[Gojifam58]

This is an interesting debate, glad I stumbled on it.

..as to the question raised a few posts ago, I've always thought of Jump Drive as an extension of gravitics research. otherwise how could one explain how it get's fudged up by gravity wells and such, and it's stated that Terrans didn't discover it untill they had both Anti-grav technology and were beyond the 100dia. limit of the Sun - in fact I recall that it was a lab in the Asteroid Belt that made the discovery. This implies that there is at least a Unified Theory in place, if not a good working postulate of one. When you look at it like that the realization that Gravitics is probably THE most important technology in Traveller hits home, it even has an impact on personal weaponry.

...as for the "Major/minor" issue, of course it's arbitrary. Just take a look at our use of the terms First World Nations as opposed to Third World Nations, it's very similar. Governments are prone to such labels, especially if there is a gain to made in doing so - for one it's a way to show their people what they have accomplished under the "guidance" of said government. That's why it had to sting the Nazi...er...Solamani Party when the Third Imperium declared the Droyne as a Major Race thus allowing all of Humaniti to be combined and keeping the number of said races to six, a number that Traveller seems to have a fascination with.

DGP said it best - who's going to tell the Aslan their not a Major Race when your staring down the muzzles of a BatRon's Spinal Mounts!:rofl:

 

[Carlobrand]

I think a good rule of thumb is: do not walk up to the clawed, carnivorous and easily offended sapient who controls 7000 worlds and tell him he's not a Major Race.

 

[Whipsnade]

Folks, you do realise this was Marc's subtle little joke? He *always* knew the Aslan were "minor". It was meant to be a social commentary on class systems, using an invented society's invented classifications, used to "put down" every race other than their own.

This, this, this, this, goddammit THIS. Why can't people get that through their skulls? Every thread about the Aslan's Major race status involves people who seemingly cannot or will not look past the surface of things. And that despite the constant examples in Traveller canon of wheels within wheels.

The Major/Minor label is an in-game piece of political chicanery devised by powerful races to "explain" why their boot is on the neck of less powerful races. It was meant from the very beginning to be a label invented after the fact and it was meant from the very beginning to be flawed. Hell, CT's own library data explicitly states how many fictional people in the setting think the label is a piece of convenient bullsh*t used to excuse away ugly side of realpolitik and there are still real people in the real world who still want to take the label at face value.

The Major/Minor label is an excuse, a fig leaf, an insincere apology a powerful race trots out whenever they tell a less powerful race what to do and where to go. The Aslan are a Major Race because they have enough bodies, planets, guns, and ships to be a Major Race. Discovering jump drive has nothing to do with it.

 

[Carlobrand]

So ... why are the Aslan on a Coyn?

 

[rancke]

So ... why are the Aslan on a Coyn?

Because the last time Grandfather took a trip round our universe was around -1000 and he noticed that the Aslans had become numerous and widespread, so he modified the coyn set and distributed it to the various Droyne communities.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

According to the alien module on Droyne, the Droyne first received Coyns around -75,000. One of the mysteries of the Coyns is that 6 of them contain representations of the 6 major races, this despite the fact that all except the Droyne were at a primitive pre-technological level at the time, undistinguished compared to their contemporary sapients on other worlds and with no reason to expect that they would achieve more than any other sapient species.

Two of the represented species were species that the Ancients had had dealings with, but there was nothing to explain why three species unrelated to the Droyne - including the Aslan - would find their way onto Droyne coyns 70 thousand years before they ever achieved prominence.

 

[mike wightman]

Simple - Grandfather's precog machines were able to identify important races from the future.

 

[rancke]

According to the alien module on Droyne, the Droyne first received Coyns around -75,000.

The Ancients had coyns too. The Droyne began using them to aid in casting around -75,000 (taught to do so by Grandfather).

One of the mysteries of the Coyns is that 6 of them contain representations of the 6 major races, this despite the fact that all except the Droyne were at a primitive pre-technological level at the time, undistinguished compared to their contemporary sapients on other worlds and with no reason to expect that they would achieve more than any other sapient species.

Yes, and the answer to the mystery -- known to us but not to the the people of the Imperium -- is that the coyns with those races on were introduced later. The one with the Aslan presumably as later as -1000.

Two of the represented species were species that the Ancients had had dealings with, but there was nothing to explain why three species unrelated to the Droyne - including the Aslan - would find their way onto Droyne coyns 70 thousand years before they ever achieved prominence.

"[Grandfather] found that without help, the Droyne lost their caste-system, so he instituted the system of coyns [...]. He continued to refine these coyns in light of what he found in his studies; over time, they came to show various races (Aslan, Hiver, K'Kree) which did not even exist when Droyne ranged the stars." [SotA:32]​

Hans

 

[Barrel]

Sorry to jump on this old thread, but FYI DGP's The Travellers' Digest 18 (January 1990) has an interview with MWM where he says the "entire major/minor race concept was created and fostered by the Vilani as a tool with which to oppress other races. And they were very successful at it."

He also says "As you (and a few others) know, the basic concept that the Aslan received the jump drive from Terran humans has been with us as a secret background idea for years. A careful analysis of things like the Aslan module and several calendars shows information that is consistent with that entire thesis. Compare the maps of Terran expansion with the maps of Aslan territory, and it is clear that Terrans had settled in what is now Hierate space well before the Aslan achieved jump drive. Compare relevant dates, and it is equally clear that the Aslan jump drive discovery and their first meeting with Terrans takes place at about the same time. That's because the idea was developed early in the development of the Aslan race."

So at least as of January 1990 MWM not only accepted the canonicity of the Aslan learning to make jump drives from Terrans, he said that idea had been part of the development of the Aslan for a long time, though perhaps not from the very beginning.

And, if you accept the Vilani concept that a major race invents jump drive on it's own, a minor one does not, then the Aslan are minor. If you use the more common sense of major as a race important in the greater scheme of things, and not just important to itself, then the Aslan are certainly a major race.

 

[exedore6]

That interview changed quite a bit about how I view the OTU. Largely, a bunch of distinctions are, in reality bullshit.

If Major/Minor is a fuzzy concept, what about Sophontology?

Is there no AI, or do the powers that be keep moving the goal-posts to maintain the status quo? Easier to refuse to recognize them, and to continue to hold their creators responsible for their actions, to maintain a pool of slaves than accept that some robots have actual free will, and are afforded all of the rights granted to any sophont.

 

[GypsyComet]

Is there no AI, or do the powers that be keep moving the goal-posts to maintain the status quo? Easier to refuse to recognize them, and to continue to hold their creators responsible for their actions, to maintain a pool of slaves than accept that some robots have actual free will, and are afforded all of the rights granted to any sophont.

Probably both. The Imperium has the example of the Sabmiqys, who are the AI left behind by a TL17 race long extinct. At the same time, the Cyms were a TL13 or 14 "accident". The true TL of AI may not even be in that range, but earlier and not tripped over, or even later and found by accident in the extant cases.

 

[mike wightman]

Cymbeline chips were a silicon based life form. Some had evolved to the cognitive level of a dog or cat.

The accident that lead to intelligence is best described as an uplift.

The Imperium saw fit to kidnap intelligent (silicon based) living beings, experiment on them, 'lobotomise' them and enslave them.

Their get out clause is that they do not recognise them as sophonts...

 

[GypsyComet]

Cymbeline chips were a silicon based life form.

The accident that lead to intelligence is best described as an uplift.

Sure, but it was accomplished, however inadvertently, with tech lower than TL17. The TL chart is presented as smooth progress in some cases and "wait a minute" discoveries in others.

Examined as a whole, the Imperial timeline regarding robots and AI serves up a couple messages: In-game, it allows the Vilani, with tens of thousands of years of distrust of AI behind them, to say "we told you so". It also delivers the opposite message: we treated this species of silicate sophonts like animals, slaves, and weapons, and the retribution was swift, total, and earned.

To return to the leading question, of course the secret of the Aslan opens up questions about other "truths" of the setting. That door was opened earlier in MT by the discussion in the Imperial Encyclopedia about factional propaganda in library data.

 

[Reynard]

"If you use the more common sense of major as a race important in the greater scheme of things, and not just important to itself, then the Aslan are certainly a major race."

Obviously Grandfather didn't subscribe to the Vilani way of thinking when he made coynes. All that travel and experimentation seem to impress on him what sophonts in the original Ancients space would become important.

 

[Timerover51]

I get around the Coyn problem by having the Aslan be genetically modified Lions from Terro, similar to the Vargr. Grandfather observed the social structure of lion prides on the savannah, and assume that this indicated some form of social structure for lions. His experiment failed to work because of the extreme territoriality of lions and their basically pure carnivorous diet, greatly restricting the number of Aslan that could be supported on any given world. In my Universe, a high population Aslan world has ONE adult Aslan per square mile of land area. Land area in this case means anything that projects above the water.